


Ministry Chaos

by ProfessorDrarry



Series: Drarry One Shot [8]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Curse Breaker Draco Malfoy, Curse Breaker Harry Potter, M/M, One Shot, There may also be pixies but don't get caught up on that, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Tumblr Fic, dialogue prompted, fluff on fluff, prompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-29
Updated: 2019-01-29
Packaged: 2019-10-18 14:46:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17582876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProfessorDrarry/pseuds/ProfessorDrarry
Summary: “Would. You. Shut. Up!” Draco shouted as he entered. “It’s bloody Saturday, and I’m pretty sure you’re even keeping the owls awake.”Potter whirled around to stare at him with a glare that would have withered a lesser person; he was in tired jeans and a rolled sleeved plaid, his hair a disaster and his glasses stuck on top of his head. When recognition dawned in his face, his scowl deepened.“Fuck off, Malfoy,” he growled. “I have just as much right to be here as anyone else.”





	Ministry Chaos

**Author's Note:**

> Once upon a time, I asked for prompts on Tumblr and then wrote a whole fic for some reason. This is that story.

 

 

 

_1.  Drarry + “Why do you want to help me?”_

 

The crashing was getting louder. There was no doubt that at any possible moment, there was going to be a bathtub in his ceiling. Draco was, if he was honest, a bit fed up. There were seventeen cases he had managed to fall behind on over the course of the week, and he was only three cases into his notes. He was going to get exactly nothing accomplished if the noise didn’t end.

Offices on Saturday’s were terrible and fascinating places. Draco always felt like he was doing something illicit like he was in the corridors after curfew. At the same time, being at work on the weekend was an extra level of pathetic and irritation. The combination of the two feelings collided in the fluorescent gloom and silence of the Ministry when there were only a few people in the building.

He stormed up to the back stairwell behind his tiny office and stomped up them as loudly as he could manage in his soft leather shoes; it wasn’t that loud, in all honesty, and he knew he was not managing to drown out the sound. Still, it was satisfying.

The door at the end of the hall was propped open and the loud crashing and cursing were much more evident as a result.

“Would. You. Shut. Up!” Draco shouted as he entered. “It’s bloody Saturday, and I’m pretty sure you’re even keeping the owls awake.”

Potter whirled around to stare at him with a glare that would have withered a lesser person; he was in tired jeans and a rolled sleeved plaid, his hair a disaster and his glasses stuck on top of his head. When recognition dawned in his face, his scowl deepened.

“Fuck  _off_ , Malfoy,” he growled. “I have just as much right to be here as anyone else.”

Normally — any other day, in fact — the retort that Draco felt would have come easily. He could have started a battle that he definitely would have won. But he surveyed the room with a surreptitious glance and found it in utter disarray; multiple pieces of wood were strewn all over the floor, there were tools scattered everywhere. Potter, for his part, looked a little bit…unhinged.

Draco straightened up, cleared his throat. “Potter, no offence here, but… _what_ exactly are you trying to do?”

Potter, wisely, eyed him with immense suspicion for a moment before he spoke. “I’m building this desk.”

Draco smirked. “Are you now?” he replied, quirking an eyebrow around the room and then steadily looking back at Potter. “Seems like maybe it’s winning.”

Potter, against all odds, burst out in a fit of laughter that he quickly tamped down. Still, there was a smile there, ghosted on his face, when he nodded sheepishly. Draco ignored the tiny spark of gratified satisfaction he felt at the expression.

“Right,” Draco began, rolling up one sleeve and entering the room more properly. “Instructions?”

“W-what?” Potter replied.

“I’m going to help you,” Draco sighed. “You’re clearly useless at this particular skill set, Auror Potter, and I would like to go home at some point today.”

A moment later, Draco was looking at a complicated instruction book full of tiny stick figures screwing things into places that didn’t exist. He nodded once and picked up a screwdriver.

“Wait, are you serious?” Potter laughed. “You know how to build flatpack furniture. You. Draco flipping Malfoy.”

“I’m a very surprising person,” Draco smirked. Before he could stop himself, Draco also  _winked_. His eye froze halfway down and he had to force himself to finish the action so it didn’t look weirder than it already did.

The wink, of course, had the same impact on Potter that it had had on everyone he had ever used it on; the familiar blush, the hesitant pause, the slight choke. The problem was that Draco had not intended to use the power of the wink on Potter.

The bigger problem was that he definitely didn’t regret it now that he had.

“Why,” Potter asked suddenly. “Why do you want to help me?”

Draco bit back the retort he wanted to use again; he didn’t actually know why that kept happening. He cleared his throat.

“This is Ron’s office,” he said eventually, avoiding Potter’s eye and finding panels d and e from the floor.

“Yeah, so?”

“He comes back from his leave Monday, right?” Potter nodded. “And I assume you haven’t told him about what happened?”

“Well, I mean…he just had a baby so it didn’t seem—”

“Yeah, exactly. So fixing his desk is like… you’ll have to tell him about the infiltration at some point, but it doesn’t have to be Monday. Plus. You are very bad at this,” Draco finished.

“I really am,” Potter laughed.

“Yeah.” Draco shrugged. “But you’re a decent friend. So I’ll help you.”

“I—” Potter stared at the ground. “Thanks, Draco.”

“Shut up and hand me that key there,” Draco said gruffly.

For an hour an a half, Draco fitted brackets into holes and screwed strangely topped screws into even stranger places. The whole time, he chatted amicably to Potter and convinced him to tell Ron about the incident at the Ministry first thing Monday.

And, for an hour and a half, he did his best to convince himself that  _he was not going to ask Harry Potter out today._

* * *

_2. Drarry: “I fucking dare you!”_

There was nothing to be done for it; since that Saturday in the office, Harry had been completely distracted. He tried desperately to blame the fact that Ron was back and that he was still cleaning up the mess from the pixie incident, but he knew in his heart of hearts that his distraction had a much simpler cause.

And it had blonde, irritatingly perfect hair.

“I fucking  _dare_ you,” Malfoy laughed, legs swung across Harry’s desk with a pasty in his hand. He had shown up at lunchtime with coffee for both of them, and now he and Ron were arguing about something dumb and Ministry-oriented. Harry had no idea what was going on.

He hadn’t been able to sit still since Malfoy had entered his space, so instead, he was running around organising the pile of artefacts he’d still not filed from almost three months of cases.

“I  _dare_ you to say that too his face!” Malfoy repeated, a peal of improbable laughter coming from Ron at the suggestion.

“Well, I mean,” Ron said reasonably. “At least then it’d be dealt with, wouldn’t it. Whatcha reckon, Harry?”

Harry’s head jerked up from his pile and he stared at both of them. Ron was splayed out in his seat, robes open and at ease. Draco’s legs were crossed at the ankle, casually possessing the surface of Harry’s desk like he’d always belonged there.

“What?”

“Merlin, what is up with you this week,” Ron complained. “You know what’s going on with him, Malfoy? Has he lied to me about how much trouble he got in last month?”

“Not that I know of,” Draco shrugged, studying Harry from afar. “I thought we agreed you’d stop—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Ron waved him off. “Draco, etcetera etcetera. It’s a little hard to break almost a decade of calling you a slimy git, mate. Be patient.”

“Slimy git?” Draco replied, that infernal eyebrow disappearing into his fringe somewhere.

“Well,” said Harry. “You were a slimy git.”

“And now?” Draco pushed, leaping off the desk and offering Harry the empty box that had been by his elbow the whole time. “What am I now?” he murmured, crouching down beside Harry to help him lift the pile of books into the box.

Harry stared at him for a moment; he wondered if Ron was currently paying enough attention to notice the shift in the tension in the room. Possibly. Probably. Still, he just stared at Draco instead.

“Less slimy,” he said eventually, his voice more strangled than he’d intended. “Still a git.” 

Draco burst into laughter and strolled from the office with a casual wave. Harry did not quite recover.

* * *

_3. Little prompt: Drarry & "What the hell are you doing up here?"_

The door was propped open, so Draco figured that was likely a good sign. Ron hadn’t been in the office when he’d arrived, and somehow, everything had set off warning bells in his mind. Which was dumb, of course. Potter was allowed to be wherever the fuck he wanted to be, honestly. He was under no obligation to be in his office at lunchtime. Except, the problem was that Draco felt the unsettling reality of having grown used to something like a millstone around his neck and he was furious.

He bundled his coat closer to his chest and pushed out onto the roof.

“What the hell are you doing up here?” he called over the sound of the wind.

Harry turned to him, shockingly, adorably startled and tried to hide something behind his back.

“Don’t tell anyone,” he begged by way of a reply.

“What am I not telling?” Draco laughed. “That Saint Potter smokes, or that he does it on the roof of the Ministry which definitely should not be accessible to anyone.”

“Either?” Harry laughed. “Both? Sorry, I meant to come back down for lunch.”

There was a hitch in Draco’s chest when he shrugged as nonchalantly as he could. “You’ve nothing to apologise for,” he insisted. “It’s not like we had a date.”

Harry laughed lightly, but when he took another drag of the still lit cigarette in his hand, Draco could see that the man was shaking.

“Something wrong?” Draco asked cautiously. He wasn’t sure that their relationship warranted this, personal details, check-ins. Jovial banter over lunch was hardly friendship. Still, he felt like he needed to ask. Potter shrugged again and turned to face him.

“Transfer finally went through. I am, officially this time, no longer an Auror.”

“I thought that was the goal,” Draco questioned. “Haven’t you been out of the department for months?” 

“Yeah, but,” Harry started. “Now it’s written down on paper and it just all seems way more…”

“Real?” Draco suggested.

“Yeah,” Harry nodded. “End of an era.”

Draco stood beside him for a moment longer before a particularly strong gust of wind knocked him in the teeth.

“Look,” he said gruffly. “No offence, but do you think maybe you can do your wallowing someplace warmer? Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

“What? Draco, it’s the middle of the day,” Harry protested.

“We’ll take a long lunch. We’re owed it, anyway. Come on, my treat. A ‘welcome to being a curse-breaker’ pint or something.”

Hesitation lingered in Harry for a moment longer before he finally seemed to just…let go.

“Oh, fine,” he conceded. “Just one question first?”

“Hm?”

“How is this my life?” Potter wondered.

“If you ever figure that out, let me know.”

* * *

_4. Drarry + "Are you sure about that?"_

“I think the timing was off,” Harry muttered into his second-pint glass. Draco had long ago lost track of how long they’d been here; Potter, it seemed, was well versed in nursing a drink. He was on his third glass of cider and things were getting a bit fuzzy around the edges. Warm. Cosy. Not a bad thing if he were to stop now.

He took another sip instead.

“What do you mean?” he finally replied.   
  
“Well,” Potter considered. “There were moments when I knew I definitely should not be doing it, you know? But the timing was never right for me to just…quit.”   
  
“Are you sure about that?” Draco mused. “Sounds awfully like a terrible excuse to me.”   
  
Harry laughed. “Well, obviously. But. I mean. Ginny had James, and then Ron got promoted. We sold the house. The timing was never right.”   
  
“I’m sorry, by the way… about,” Draco waved his hands noncommittally.   
  
“Oh, the divorce? Why? I’m not,” Harry shrugged. “It was time. We make way better friends and co-parents than we ever did partners. People change, in a war. I love her. I just don’t…I can’t… I think I spent too much time worrying about her. I just want to treat her like glass. She hates it.” He smiled ruefully and downed the rest of his drink. “Anyway, the point is I should have made the move a long time ago. I don’t know why this is throwing me so much.”   
  
Draco snorted. “Seriously? You don’t? You’re thirty and starting a new career. I know you’re mental, but even you must know it’s okay to be a little trepidatious about it.”   
  
Harry smiled in response and fiddled with the fork the server had left behind. They stopped talking for a moment, studying the wider room of the very small pub they’d ended up in.   
  
“I have a question,” Harry said suddenly. Draco gestured for him to continue. “Why? Why are we friends all of a sudden?”   
  
“It hasn’t actually been that long, you know. You ought to remember. There was a desk involved,” Draco teased. The third glass of cider culminated in the worst of his many terrible decisions over the past few months; he winked again.   
  
“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” Harry chuckled, turning red. “You’ll give me the wrong idea.”   
  
“Harry Potter,” Draco insinuated. “You would not know a wrong idea if it hit you across the head.”   
  
Draco stood up, reached across the table, and smacked Harry straight across the head. He walked out without another word, leaving a stunned idiot to wallow in his own inability to see sense.

By the time he got back to the office, Draco was confused and a little bit angry; if Potter wasn’t even going to be able to see him flirting, what the hell was the point in this silly crush of his?   
He tramped around the room for a few minutes, searching for the file he knew he had left somewhere on the bookshelf, but he kept getting distracted. It was really quite irritating.

“Knock, knock?” a tentative voice said from the door. Harry was standing in the door frame, damp from the outside and still wearing his coat.

“You know there’s a separate level of purgatory for people who say knock instead of knocking, right?” Draco replied irritably.

“Can I come in?”   
  
“I suppose.”   
  
“Why do I feel like you’re mad at me?” Harry asked. Draco didn’t reply. “Listen, I just…you asked me if I was sure, before. About never having time to quit?”  
  
“Mhmm?” Draco prompted.   
  
“Well, I am,” Harry said firmly. “I was. I was never ready.”   
  
“You’re ready now, though,” Draco stated. “Why are you doubting that?”   
  
“Oh, I’m ready,” Harry replied, stepping up to the shelf beside Draco, crowding into his space and reaching behind him. Draco inhaled sharply and felt himself collapse a little bit into his frame. But Harry just held out a large brown file folder.   
  
“Good,” Draco answered quietly, taking it from him.

“Draco,” Harry said insistently. “I’m  _ready_.”

Draco’s hands were very full; he was holding three folders and a bag of trash he’d meant to put in the bin at least five minutes ago. If his hands had not been so full—well, he’s not sure what he would have done, but it certainly would not have been standing passively while Harry Potter reached out and tucked his hair gently behind his ear. It certainly would not have been letting Potter spin on his heel and waltz very far away.

* * *

_5. HBP!Drarry + “I’m no good for you.”_

The commotion was instantaneous the moment he entered the office; he wasn’t sure what had been containing the cacophony of noise, but Draco definitely broke it when he opened the door.

“Draco! Down!”

He instinctively ducked, just as a  _Diffindo_ burst past his head and over the window to his left. It clearly met its mark, because the wall behind him remained unharmed.

“What the hell!” Draco shouted over the banging and crashing and sparks.

“Pixies!” Ron cried back.

With a focus on what was happening finally in front of him, Draco saw the small, whirling green dive-bombing pixies clearly.

“ _Again_!”   
  
“Apparently!” Harry, who had sent the first Diffindo was now running around with an electric net streaming from his wand. “We only heard them when I went in the backstairs to head to the roof!”   
  
“Your smoking has saved the Ministry,” Draco teased, ducking again as another Pixie attempted to pull his hair. Harry laughed and reached out to grab the one beside him. Draco rolled his eyes and pulled out his wand. 

“Immobulus!” he cried, stalling the pixie beside him in mid-air. Harry grabbed it in the net that now contained a dozen or so groggy imps and suddenly, the room was silent again.

“That was the last one,” he explained, holding up the net.   
  
“What the fuck is happening around here?” Draco demanded, glancing around the ruins of his office.

Paper was scattered all over the floor, bookshelves overturned, and his desk — once a large, beautiful oak piece he’d had commissioned because he felt like it — was splintered and screws were strewn everywhere.   
  
“Why do you think they go for the desks?” Ron mused instead of answering him.

Draco scrubbed a hand through his hair and sighed. “I’m going to get coffee,” he announced.

“Yeah, think I will too,” Harry agreed. “Ron?”

Ron surveyed them both with an owl-like gaze. He shook his head. “You two go. Bring me back a latte. I’ll get started on… well, on this.”   
  
Harry nodded and followed Draco down the main stairs to the lobby; when he glanced back, Draco startled. He’d never seen him here, out in the open in the Ministry. He looked so much like he just fit there; his robes were tailored right, open and flowing, his hands shoved in his pockets as he skipped down the stairs. He exuded confidence and power, trust. Draco had never, in all of his time here, felt that way. He never quite convinced anyone the first time they saw him that he was a powerful member of the protective Curse-breaking team. He bet that Potter rarely ever had to show his credentials when he arrived on a scene.

As the reached the bottom of the atrium, ready to stop by the coffee cart, Draco whirled around. He must have startled Potter because he flinched slightly and pulled his hands from his pockets. He wondered how deranged he looked right now because it certainly felt like it was  _very much deranged._

“I’m no good for you,” Draco spluttered. “I know…I mean, I understand what you… yesterday, you said—”  
  
Harry shook his head in confusion. “Draco, slow down there, mate.  _What_?”

“I’m no good for you. I mean, I’m happy, or whatever, that you… that you know what you want now, but it shouldn’t be…I shouldn’t be. Fuck. Just,  _leave_ it okay. I can introduce you to some people or whatever, but—” 

He cut himself off and stared holes into the parquet floor. When he finally looked back up into what he had decided was an awkward silence, he found Potter smiling in an infuriatingly calm way.   
  
“Don’t I get any say in this?” he teased lightly.

“Harry, I just don’t think that—”  
  
“Maybe I haven’t been clear enough. Maybe that’s the issue here,” Harry mused. “So, let me clarify, Draco Malfoy. You are insufferable, and an idiot, and sometimes, I want to hurl hot coffee at your head. For many years now, that has been enough to irritate the  _fuck_ out of me. You and your dumb hair and your fancy clothes and your ability to make women fall at your feet with that ridiculous wink of yours. Those things annoy me. To no end.”   
  
Draco was glaring now. He didn’t love this summary of what Potter thought of him if he was honest.

“And then, just when I was finally getting a handle on my fucking  _crush_ on you, you show up and build my best friend a new desk like it was the easiest thing in the world. And then have the nerve to start getting along with him. And eat lunch on my desk! Like that’s just…a thing you do!”   
  
“So sorry to have been such an inconvenience to you and—”

“Draco, shut up, I’m talking,” Potter interjected. “So no,  _Mr Malfoy_. I will not just  ‘leave it’ and I will not keep pretending I don’t want to push you up against the nearest wall every time I see you. You’re going to need to decide what to do about that. But I’m certainly not going to  _help_ you try and push me away.”   
  
He shrugged, returned his hands to his pockets, and walked past Draco to order coffee. When he had stopped speaking to the witch at the cart, he turned back around and slowly approached.

“Got you a croissant, too,” Harry murmured lowly as he passed. “For you to chew on while you contemplate how lovely we would look sitting  _together_ on my desk.”

  

* * *

_6. Drarry - “What’s the plan, Harry”_

“Good morning,” Draco said to Ron, offering a coffee from the tray in his hands.

“Um…good morning?” Ron replied, puzzled. “You know it’s nine am and not lunch time, right? Did you take a Pixie to the head.”   
  
“I know, I just…owed you a coffee.”   
  
Ron sighed and stood up. “Okay, enough, Malfoy,” he complained. “Here’s what you’re going to do. He likes the museum. The big Muggle one, in the city.. It’s a bit ridiculous, actually. He looks like a little kid. Just ask him out. It’s Friday. You can handle this.”   
  
Draco sputtered for a moment. “I do not need you to… no, you know what, just piss off, Weasley.”   
  
Ron raised his hands in surrender, but pasted an infuriating smirk on at the same time. Draco’s face heated and he swallowed back the anger that was stemming from his anxiety and embarrassment.   
  
“The museum,” he stated. “You’re sure this is a good idea?”   
  
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Ron laughed. “No, absolutely not. This is going to end in a disaster. But here’s the deal; he’s in the middle of changing careers and he’s so distracted he can’t even seem to close cases. So, ask him out, before I just lock you two in a room together to deal with the tension. It’s ruining my life. Now. Get out of my office. He’s not coming in today.”   
  
Draco cocked his head. “Wait, he isn’t? Why not?”    
  
“He said something about using up his leave days just in case they decide to pull his seniority,” Ron chuckled. He straightened up a bit as though an idea had struck him. “Hey, Malfoy. You have any extra leave days.”   
  
Draco sighed, nodded, and left the room. He had an owl to send and an office to leave.

\-- -- -- XxXx -- -- -- 

Ron had scribbled the address of Harry’s flat on a scrap of a memo about floor cleaning charms, and Draco had clutched it so hard it was barely legible by the time he found the blue front door in Maida Vale; it was way nicer than he’d anticipated.

Knocking wasn’t actually that hard. Draco, after all, liked Harry. Against all odds. He wasn’t actually a shrinking violet. It was just…. strange.

“Draco.” Harry smiled as he opened the door. “I had a feeling you’d show up. You ready to go?”   
  
Draco was flustered. “Did…did Ron call?”   
  
Harry looked back at him confused. “What? No. Why?”

Draco just stared at him. He was wearing a deep green peacoat that Draco had never seen before, and grey trousers that were far fancier than even his regular work attire.

“Where were you going?” Draco asked.   
  
“Had some errands to run. It’s fine, you can come with me,” Harry said, grinning again.

“Don’t you want to know why I’m here?” Draco blustered.

Harry shrugged. “Not particularly. It’d be nice to have some company, though. I don’t like food shops.”

Suddenly, Draco found his Last Straw. He was a student in last straws; the moments where a Malfoy finally gave up and gave in were rare and eclectic. He liked to search through the history of his family to find them. In fact, survival in his early teens had been completely predicated on the fact that there were far more damnable Last Straws in the generations that came before his than being openly gay.

Staring at Harry now, his whole stance unfazed and relaxed in his belief that Draco just would do whatever he expected him to, he finds himself in the interesting position of being able to act impulsively.

Draco is not an impulsive person but he was suddenly quite furious. How  _dare_ Potter believe that he’s the only one who can deliver shocking edicts and insufferable flirting?

When he acts, he is fully committed. He is present and entirely aware of what he is doing. This means that when Harry’s back slams into the door behind him hard enough to rattle the window in its pane and something deep within him growls in satisfaction, Draco is completely aware of it happening.

When he shoves a knee between Potter’s legs and pins him by the chest, he is acutely conscious of the sensations he is met with from his head to his groin. And when he finally leans down to kiss Harry, the sparks in his brain and the roll of his stomach are so intense that he’s not sure he isn’t going to be sick.

He doesn’t really have time to contemplate the problem, though, because suddenly Harry is present as well, groaning and murmuring “fucking  _finally_ , Malfoy” before putting significantly more effort into the kiss than Draco had been prepared for.

They remain in this embattled embrace; Draco knows they look like horny teenagers at his parent’s door after curfew. For a few minutes, he also doesn’t care. He wants to scream when the shame creeps back in, guided by the fact that Harry is now rutting ever so slightly against his knee.

“What’s the plan, Harry,” he gasps, pulling back. “Food shopping, remember?”

“Sod that,” Harry replies, reaching behind him with one hand to open the door and dragging Draco inside with him with the other. “I can starve, I don’t even care. Inside.  _Now_.”

The door slamming makes Draco startle; he’s pretty sure neither of them had actually touched it. The spark of frenetic magic wafts into his consciousness, right before Harry pulls off his shirt in the middle of the entryway, and Draco’s consciousness decides to fully take its leave.

* * *

_7. Prompt: Drarry Person 1- “that’s not what you told me the other day/night.” Person 2- “Okay, well, it’s what I’m telling you now.”_

For the first time in all his time in the city, Draco is glad that he lives in London. There are few places where a curry could arrive at your door at midnight, unquestioned and as delicious as at a more appropriate time. Potter had not been kidding about starving; he didn’t even have a few stale crackers shoved in the back of a cupboard.

They ate sitting up in Harry’s bed. Later, Draco would probably find this gross. Right now, he was not really up for a discussion of anything that involved leaving the warm comfort of this miniature world they had suddenly entered.

Harry was not wearing a shirt. All other conversations could wait.

Harry had grown suddenly shy in the late hours of the afternoon. Sleep had engulfed them both, and apparently, waking up had rumpled and unsettled the man - whose eyes, Draco noted, were a more complex golden green when he wasn’t wearing his glasses.

“This is truly terrible food,” Draco muttered through a mouthful of naan.

Harry laughed. “Pickings were slim. Shut up. I would have had food if  _someone_ hadn’t finally decided to grow a pair.”

“I’ll have you know, I liked you first.” Draco glared at Harry, who just smiled in response.

“Whatever, pretty boy.”

“How  _dare_ you,” Draco teased. “Calling me pretty, with those fucking eyes.”

Harry laughed again and threw his food container on the nightstand. He collapsed back onto his pillow and shifted to stare at Draco.

“You still think you’re no good for me, huh?” he asked quietly.

“I think we’re no good for each other,” Draco replied, pushing food around with his fork. “Also, I don’t mean to make this…you know, awkward and everything but—”

“If you’re going to tell me you don’t want to keep doing this, would you mind waiting until you aren’t in my bed? Like, tomorrow even.”

Draco looked at Harry expecting to find him joking. Instead, he found a vulnerability that broke his heart. “Silly man,” Draco said, putting aside his own dinner and shuffling down under the covers until he was face to face with Harry. “I just wanted to say. I won’t do casual. I’m terribly jealous and kind of an asshole, and I’m far too old to not just admit that. So I don’t know what you want from me now that I’ve finally done you’re little ‘push you up against a wall’ thing, but…anyway.”

Draco closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. He was not normally this shy; Potter discombobulated him and it should probably be more of a warning sign to him than it was.

Suddenly, a kiss was placed gently on his nose. “Technically it was a door,” Harry whispered. “I am a thirty-one-year-old divorced dad of three. Do you really think I want casual?”

“Well, I don’t fucking know. We’re only in this mess because I screwed a couple of — oh, shut up Harry. Merlin, you’re worse than Pansy.”

“Well, you’re the one who just used the word ‘screwed’,” Harry replied, shuffling back and standing up. He picked up both containers of food and started to walk out of the room. “It’s late and you should stay. There’s a new toothbrush under the sink. You smell like curry.”

“So do you!” he called after a chuckling Harry. Still, a grin stuck itself firmly on his face as he wandered to the bathroom.

Saturday morning found Draco warm and cosy and unwilling to move for anything; the blanket was the perfect weight and Harry, though not quite touching him, radiated just enough heat to be a steady presence.

Ron Weasley, on the other hand, seemed to have decided this was unacceptable. At approximately nine that very morning, the fireplace in the corner of Harry Potter’s large bedroom flared with green light and a large, red-headed man stepped into the room in full Auror regalia.

“We’ve solved the pixie mystery,” he announced loudly, startling Harry bolt-upright. “You two both need to get into the Ministry, right now. There’s a debrief in Malfoy’s office in fifteen minutes.”

“Um, Ron?” Harry wheezed.

“Yes, I have in fact noticed that Draco Malfoy is half-naked and in you’re bed at nine in the morning, Harry. I am after all an Auror,” Ron snapped. “And normally, I’d be mortified and leaving to go and scrub my own eyes out with the business end of a toothbrush. But right now, I mean it. You both need to get up and get going right now.”

“Yes, well, Auror Weasley,” Draco interrupted. “We are more than happy to comply. But I suspect Harry’s protests here are more related to the fact that we are not  _half_ -naked.”

Ron blushed the deepest shade of scarlet Draco had ever seen and immediately whirled around to face the fire. “Right, um, erm, yeah. I’ll just. I’ll sort myself. I’ll…see you soon.”

“See you soon,” Harry laughed.

They stepped into Draco’s office in the midst of complete and total anarchy. Every Minister in the department was crammed into the too-small space and were all, it seemed, trying to speak at once. They both watched for a moment before Harry cleared his throat very pointedly. Miraculously, everyone fell silent a moment later, and the crackle of sheer power was back in full force; Draco had to look away. The idea of seeing that energy in Potter? Well.

They were at work.

“Sorry to interrupt, but this is Mr Malfoy, and as we are standing in his office, I feel it would be prudent to get him up to speed, don’t you think, Ministers?”

Ron stood up from where he had been leaning on Draco’s replacement desk and proceeded to explain the situation. As he spoke, Harry became more and more incredulous, and Draco had to fight the urge to laugh.

“Ron, just. Stop there for a moment,” Harry finally interrupted, holding up a hand. “You mean to tell me that all nine— _nine_ —of these pixie infiltrations over the past six months—which, may I just remind you, have been under investigation by no fewer than four departments of dark magic. Those attacks can all be attributed to an infestation of fucking  _woodlice_?!”

“Unfortunately,” Ron nodded. “Yes.”

“And furthermore,” Harry said, his voice reaching a whole new level of volume that sent a shiver down Draco’s spine. “That the Ministry has been  _aware_ of the problem for _well over a year_?”

“It would seem that way,” Ron agreed. “I only discovered the issue because my new desk fell apart all of a sudden. The Pixies were just attracted to the offices because they eat them.”

Harry, as everyone could see, was furious. He whirled around and began advancing, ever so slowly, on one, small, bald man, who seemed to already know what was coming for him.

“I should hope that such a  _monumental_ oversight,” Harry growled. “Of the sort that has paused Ministry transfer requests and halted budgets, warrants a full investigation, Minister Crowly.” The small man nodded vigorously. “I also expect  _full_ compensation for the three months of lost pay for all those whose requests were unduly delayed,” Harry added, spinning on his heel.

“Now. If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen. Auror Weasley and his wife, and Mr Malfoy and I have a very important brunch to expense on company time.”

With that, Potter waltzed from the office in a full billowing of robes; Draco beamed at the stunned Ministry officials and Ron saluted as they both followed Harry out of the office.

“I take it back,” Ron said as they all took the stairs two at a time. “You may continue to sleep with my best friend.”

“That’s not what you said the other day,” Harry laughed.

“Yeah, well, I’m saying it now,” Ron replied. “That was fucking brilliant. I’ve been waiting for you to tell off Crowly for  _years_!”

“How is that because of me?” Draco grinned, catching Harry’s hand in his own.

“Whatever, mate, I know what I know.” Ron grinned and flung an arm across Harry’s shoulders. They made for a rather cumbersome trio of grown ass men cackling their way out of the Ministry building. “I can’t  _wait_ to tell Hermione!”

##  **The End**

 

 


End file.
